"Hard Corps" documentary looks at drum corps experience

by Drum Corps International

Filmmaker David Malver realized the similarities between making a documentary and marching in a drum corps while he was a student at New York University. The similarities became so apparent that Malver began making a documentary film about the drum corps experience in the spring of 2000. "(Making a documentary) is a lot like marching drum corps -- you spend a lot of money and you don't know what you're going to get out of it," Malver said. "You try to find ways to make it work."His 27-minute film, "Hard Corps," will be shown on Sunday, July 14 at 1 p.m. at the Fairfax Laemmle Theater 2 in West Hollywood (7907 Beverly Blvd.) – a perfect afternoon opportunity for drum corps fans heading to the Drum Corps International show in Santa Ana, Calif., that evening. For tickets call 1.866.468.7619."Hard Corps" is also available on VHS at Cadets, Crossmen and Colts souvenir stands during drum corps events.The film takes a look at the drum corps life of Tim Greene, a snare drummer from the Cadets of Bergen County, N.J. The film won the 2002 "Achievement in Documentary" award at the NYU First Run Film Festival.Malver, who graduated from NYU with a degree in television and film in 2000, and who marched with the Colts from 1996 to 1998, began making the film while enrolled in a documentary film class taught by Emmy-winning documentary director Jim Brown. Malver began researching the film at drum corps audition camps, and assembled the film with a couple friends. They shot the film on videotape, a medium much more inexpensive than using 35-millimeter film, for instance. "I really used the resources that were available," Malver explained.The film has been very well received, Malver said. "One guy (Leif Nordling) drove all the way from Vermont to see it" when the film premiered at NYU. Nordling even described one portion of the film as "Goosebump city. ""One of my favorite scenes is at a practice when the cameraman is behind the drum line during some particularly insane drill. It's sort of a steadycam shot where you can imagine the guy getting out of breath trying to keep up with all the speed and direction changes," Nordling wrote on a message board."I'm trying to show it around to as many distributors as possible," said Malver, who said he initially wanted to show the picture at the Robert Redford's prestigious Sundance film festival.Malver is currently working on some projects for Youth Education in the Arts and plans to possibly make more drum corps films in the future. For more information about "Hard Corps," go to http://www.hardcorps.homestead.com .